Raising Race Conscious Children

Welcome to Raising Race Conscious Children, a resource to support adults who are trying to talk about race with young children. The goals of these conversations are to dismantle the color-blind framework and prepare young people to work toward racial justice. If we commit to collectively trying to talk about race with young children, we can lean on one another for support as we, together, envision a world where we actively challenge racism each and every day. Many of the blog's posts are geared toward White people but a community of guest bloggers represent diverse backgrounds and the strategies discussed may be helpful for all.

It starts one conversation at a time.

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Guest Blogger Julie Roberts-Phung writing for Raising Race Conscious Children

by guest blogger Julie Roberts-Phung This post is being re-posted as part of a week-long series highlighting supporters of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), both in their parenting of race-conscious children and their activist work for racial justice. SURJ…

Elmo and Whoopi chat about race

by Sachi Feris I have always loved Elmo…. and I have always been a Whoopi Goldberg fan. So, from time to time, I watch Elmo and Whoopi’s exchanges on Sesame Street about their different skin colors and hair/fur. When I first…

Support children to identify, explore, and take action on race-related issues

by guest blogger Shira Eve Epstein, Ed.D How can children be supported to talk about and take action on civic issues that are deeply entangled with race and racism? How can we engage them on public matters like the accessibility…

What I do when I confuse two people of color (and what I say to my daughter)

by Sachi Feris When my daughter was about a year-and-a-half, we were standing outside of our building and my daughter pointed to a boy about 30 feet away and asked me, “Julien?” referring to a friend from her daycare. This…

My children's complicated identities as White Hispanics

by guest blogger Myriam Juarbe I am a Hispanic, White female from San Juan, Puerto Rico, married to my college sweetheart in graduate school. He is also Hispanic and White (but from Spain)—although here in the United States, many people…

I want to teach my daughter that fairness and equity don’t mean that everyone gets the same thing

by Sachi Feris My daughter and I have been reading the book, “Miss Nelson is Missing,” which features an infamously mischievous class. We read about students throwing paper planes in the air, and that they were “the worst behaved class…

I am White. My daughter is White. My granddaughter is White. And we talk about race.

by guest blogger Connie Carter I am White. My daughter is White. My granddaughter is White, and we all live in Maine, one of the Whitest states in the Union. When I think about raising a race conscious grandchild under…

My Baby Definitely Sees Race

by Sachi Feris My daughter has been playing with my Fisher Price vintage people from the 1970’s since she was about a year old. My mom had saved my figurines from my childhood but they were all White—so I went…

Does your family’s skin match? In our transracial family, our skin doesn’t match—and we talk about it!

by guest blogger Janet Alperstein, Ph.D From the day I met my son at age six months, our adoption story and our racial and religious identities have been part of our everyday conversations. The discussions have evolved over time as…

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by Sachi Feris One of my daughter’s favorite activities is playing with her vintage Fisher Price people from the 1970’s. At one-and-a-half, she spent happy hours placing them in and out of her vintage school bus…but it proved to be…